DEBKAfiles War Diary covers Uday Husseins army of guerrilla-suicide
terrorists who follow al Qaedas former use of pickup trucks for terror
in Afghanistan and Palestinian suicide tactics against Israel.

Their most lethal weapon is the Russian-made Kornet AT-14 wire-guided anti-tank
missile that can penetrate up to 1100 mm of steel armor at a range of 3.5km

It was supplied from Belarus through Syria. Putins possible involvement
is under US intelligence scrutiny

Iraqi VP Ramadan: Suicide bombings will be military routine. "We will
use any means against enemy in our land and in his land too."

Iraq TV names and awards medals to suicide bomber in first terrorist attack
in Iraq war that killed four US soldiers Saturday at Highway 9 checkpoint north
of Najaf. Soldiers of 3rd Infantrys 1st Brigade were checking taxi when
it blew up. DEBKAfile military sources: Iraqi Saddams Fedayeen are trained
in suicide-terror tactics.

Two American troops killed in southern Afghanistan by four ex-Taliban gunmen
on motorbikes.

Uday Hussein, faithfully obeying his father, immersed himself
from April 2002 in creating a vast guerrilla-terrorist army 800,000 strong,
according to DEBKA-Net-Weeklys intelligence sources. Its largest component,
around 650,000, comes from the ubiquitous Baath party, the Saddam regimes
eyes, ears and informers in every corner of Iraqi society, together with members
of Saddams Fedayeen (Martyrs) Division of the Special Republican Guards.

These Iraqi elements  irregular and military  were responsible
for plaguing the American columns pushing north to Baghdad and playing havoc
with their long supply lines, forcing the allied war command to take stock of
the pace of advance on Baghdad.

From Thursday, March 27, allied air forces, while keeping the bombing momentum
up in Baghdad, Basra and against concentrations of Republic Guards, began hitting
back by pipointing pinpointed Baath centers. In two days, they attacked nine
headquarters.

The regimes Baath loyalists were easily recruited. On top of his regular
paycheck, each was given a $200 monthly bonus for attending military training
three times a week and a further $50 for any relative over 14 brought in. The
training included dare-devil driving tactics behind the wheels of pickup trucks,
usually Nissens, while firing heavy machineguns or light mortars, planting and
detonating explosives, mounting ambushes and taking part in coordinated sorties
by groups of armed vehicles.

Their most effective weapon was one unanticipated by US tank troops:
a Russian-made Kornet AT-14 ATGM laser wire-guided anti-tank missile capable
of penetrating 1100 to 1200 millimeters of steel armor protected by explosive
armor at a distance of 3.5 km. This formidable direct-fire weapon is fitted
on the fast-moving Nissen trucks driven by the guerrillas. The Kornets
drawbacks are that, to keep its sights locked on target, it must remain stationary
after firing; moreover, its wire-guided missiles cannot be fired over trees,
power lines or water, because the wire will snag and break disabling the guidance
system. The Kornet will therefore lose effectiveness as US tanks approach the
canals and power lines around Baghdad. However, in the open desert, the Kornet
is helping Iraqi forces equalize the advantages of superior American weapons.
It is credited with disabling a number of heavy American Abrahm-1 tanks and
one Bradley armored troop carrier of the US 3d Division fighting in the central
region around Nasiriya.

The missile and instructors for its use, DEBKAfile intelligence sources report,
were provided by an old friend of Saddam Hussein, President Aleksander Lukashenko
of Belarus. It was sent through Iraqs primary smuggling route across Syria.
The CIA is investigating reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have
given the nod to the delivery.

The Baath party hacks were transformed into guerrilla fighters by an estimated
700 Iraqi military intelligence officers who in the 1990s underwent long training
stints in guerrilla and terror tactics in Chechnya with al Qaeda experts.

Uday is rumored to have made secret trips to Iran, Lebanon, Bosnia and Macedonia
to bring 300 al Qaeda instructors over to Iraq. He also made a study of the
deadliest terrorist practices incepted by al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan
and by Palestinian terrorists in their confrontation with Israel.

The pickup-terror tactic he picked up from Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda and
Taliban plied dozens and sometimes hundreds of fast vehicles armed with light
and heavy weapons as an instrument of repression against Afghan tribes and warlords.
Fear of the white devils suddenly darting out at them kept tribal
chiefs intimidated and obedient. Uday found them ideal for bedeviling US troops
and their long supply lines in the open Iraqi desert as they came up from Kuwait
and Qatar. At the end of 2002, he sent agents to Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia
to buy 7,500 pickups with four-wheel drives, ostensibly for farms newly established
to make the desert bloom.

Painting them in the drab colors of the desert, Iraqi mechanics fitted the
vehicles with heavy machine guns, handing them to local Baath militia cells
with orders to strike at US columns, waylay supply convoys and vehicles lost
in the desert and terrorize US military camps bedded down for the night.

DEBKA-Net-Weeklys intelligence sources add that, after borrowing al Qaedas
raiding tactics, Uday took a leaf out of Yasser Arafats suicide terror
strategy. They report that while US intelligence officers were taking notes
of the large-scale battles Israel conducted in Palestinian towns from April
to September 2002  especially in Nablus and Jenin, Iraqi intelligence
agents studied Palestinian combat tactics and sent in their reports to Uday
by couriers passing through Jordan or Syria.

The Americans made a study of Israeli combat in the densely populated areas
of Arab cities; Udays informants focused on the Palestinians failure
to keep Israeli troops out of their Casbahs and the refugee camps of Nablus
and Jenin, despite their honeycombs of narrow alleyways and interconnecting
underground tunnels. He concluded that Israeli intelligence had been forewarned
which of the alleys and buildings were booby-trapped and had kept Israel troops
out of harms way. To be on the safe side, IDF soldiers initiated the method
of passing from house to house by breaking through internal walls instead of
exposing themselves to attack on the outside.

Saddams son also concluded that the Palestinians had not prepared a large
enough force of suicide bombers to stop the Israelis from seizing their cities.
Only in Jenin, in the battle fought on April 7, 2002, did a group of Palestinian
and Hizballah suicide fighters blow themselves up and inflict heavy Israeli
casualties.

After making a thorough study of these techniques, Uday ordered the 100,000
troops of Saddams Fedayeen commandos to set up small suicide units of
3-5 men in every Iraqi city including Baghdad and Tikrit. These men were ordered
to greet US forces entering their towns by blowing themselves up in sequence
and also picking off allied troops at vulnerable points.

Saturday, March 29, the first suicide bomber went into action, killing four
US soldiers of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division by blowing up a taxi at
a checkpoint on the Baghdad Highway 9 north of Najef.

Like the Palestinians, the Iraqis regard suicide terror as a legitimate military
tactic for which military units are specifically trained, notably Saddams
Fedayeen Division. The first Iraqi human bomb was a serviceman, NCO Al Jaafar
al-Noamani, who was awarded two posthumous medals by Saddam Hussein. Vice President
Taha Yassin Ramadan went on TV to announce that blessed martyrdom
was to be routine military policy.